_Mercury_ and a _Traveller_.
One that was just Entring upon a Long Journey, took up a Fancy of putting
a Trick upon _Mercury_. He say’d him a short Prayer for the _Bon-Voyage_,
with a Promise, that the God should go Half with him in whatever he
found. Some body had lost a Bag of Dates and Almonds, it seems, and it
was His Fortune to Find it. He fell to Work upon ’em Immediately, and
when he had Eaten up the Kernels, and all that was Good of them, Himself,
he lay’d the Stones, and the Shells, upon an Altar; and desir’d _Mercury_
to take Notice that he had Perform’d his Vow. For, says he, Here are the
Outsides of the One, and the Insides of the Other, and there’s the Moiety
I Promis’d ye.
The MORAL.
_Men Talk as if they Believ’d in God, but they Live as if they thought
there were None; for their very Prayers are Mockeries, and their Vows and
Promises are no more then_ Words of Course, _which they never Intended to
make Good_.